CHAPTER TWO

DEAN

I'm hanging out waiting for lunch and bored out of my mind. Normally, I'd be eating with Colby or Joe, but Joe's still out on injury and Colby is doing some promotional shit for Crossfit. As the burger and fries are put in front of me, I realize it's probably better. Colby would be lecturing me about how unhealthy this shit is. Guess what, Colby? I'm a street kid. This is a fucking five-star meal for me. At least it's not fast food.

I look up from my food long enough to see a few people come in. It's Nattie and that fucktard husband of hers, Tyson Kidd. He's got a real name, I'm sure, but I could care less what it is. Justin Gabriel's with them. I watch as Tyson talks to Justin and I notice Nattie is silent. She looks way too sad for a girl who kicks that much ass in the ring. I have no idea why she stays with a guy who makes her look that sad.

Since I'm bored, I watch them for a bit. Nattie actually orders some kind of burger with fries. I am impressed. Most of the Divas won't eat like that. April has a bit of a pizza fettish, but she's naturally tiny and doesn't seem to need to worry about weight gain. The other Divas all panic at greasy, fattening food. I've seen them backstage baring touching the catering. I hardly pay attention to them, but I do notice things like that. In fact, one of the Bellas... whichever one has smaller tits and no ass... freaks out if her food isn't vegan. It must be the one Bryan's shacked up with. I barely remember who's who most days. Honestly, I hooked up with both of them at one point or another. I'm pretty sure Nikki's the plastic one. Whatever.

Nattie notices me looking at her and flashes me a quick smile. It lights up her face. She doesn't look like that around Tyson. I nod in her direction. I don't do warm, fuzzy smiles across the distance. I'm too hardened for shit like that.

To my surprise, Tyson follows her smile and sees me. He glares. I'm smiling now as I casually flip him off. The look on his face is priceless. I notice Nattie bites her lip to hide either a smile or an outright laugh.

"What's your problem?" Tyson asks me.

"Nothing, dude. That's just how I say hello," I tell him.

Justin isn't as cautious as Nattie, and he actually does laugh. "You've got issues, Ambrose," he tells me.

"Issues? Nah, man, I wrote the damn magazines." I look at Nattie and just to get under Tyson's skin some more, I add, "Nice to see you, Nattie." I get up and go pay my bill before leaving.

Okay, so that was mildly entertaining. My phone rings and I see it's an Uso. Yeah, I can't tell that set of twins apart, either, unless Trinity's hanging all over her husband. The number's listed as Johnny, but it could easily be Josh.

"What's up?" I answer. The Usos have been stalking me since Joe's surgery. I think he asked them to watch my back or something.

"Hey, wanna meet up for food?" He asks.

"I just ate," I reply.

"Eat some more. We need to talk, Uce."

"I'm not your uce," I point out.

"You're Joe's uce, and he's ours."

"What's wrong?"

"Why do you assume something is wrong?"

"Your wording." I'm kind of freaking out. Is Joe in trouble? Did something go wrong with his surgery? Does he need another one? A thousand possibilities race through my mind, none of them good.

"Stop freaking out," he tells me. "It's not that serious. Just come."

"Where?" He gives me the location. I hurry to it.

Johnny and Josh are there, but Trinity's not. "Who's who?" I ask.

The one in red says, "Josh." He waves. They are used to needing to identify themselves. Unlike the Bellas, they are identical, so most people can't identify them on sight.

"So what's going on?"

"Do you know a girl named Maddie?" Johnny asks.

"Maybe? I know a lotta girls. I don't always catch names."

"She's hanging around swearing she's your new girlfriend and threatening other fans."

"She's batshit, Uce," Josh adds. He points at a girl trying to hide her face at a table near us. "And following you."

Maddie has long, curly brown hair and a body I recognize, even if I can't see her face. Crap, I think. It's the ring rat whose clothes I gave to April.

"Um, yeah... We met once," I say.

The Usos exchange knowing glances with one another. "I thought you avoided your crazy fangirls?" Johnny asks.

"I was drunk. She's just a ring rat."

"That's a terrible term," Trinity says disapprovingly. She snuck over to us while I was looking at Maddie. Renee is with her. God, I hate Renee. She's constantly starting rumors on social media that we're dating. I've given up on trying to stop that. I mean, fuck, you share a few cabs with a girl and everyone assumes you're dating. I don't date. For the record, she gets on my last nerve, but I don't care enough to stop her from spreading lies. It's too much work. "It's a sexist, disrespectful thing the guys say to justify treating a girl like shit after they use her for sex."

"Trin, chill," Johnny says.

"Don't ever let me hear you calling some girl that."

"Do you prefer 'hoe' or 'skank,' then?" I ask.

"Woman. I prefer woman."

"She threw herself at me, is threatening fans, and appears to be stalking me."

"Fine, psycho then." She shakes her head.

"I got this," Renee says. She walks over to the girl looking as dangerous as an actual wrestler and says, "Bitch, quit stalking my man!" She looks at me. I decide Renee's psychotic attention seeking might be useful for once and I nod.

Maddie looks horrified. She recovers and tries to hit Renee, but Trinity steps between them. Maddie leaves, defeated.

"Thanks," I reluctantly tell Renee.

"No problem." She smiles at me and I know I'm going to regret letting her help me later.

"Treat your women better and maybe this won't happen, Ambrose," Trinity tells me. She kisses Johnny before dragging Renee away.

"Yo, Trin was pissed, Uce," Josh tells Johnny.

"When isn't she, Uce?" Johnny replies. He laughs like it's no big deal. "Sorry she got all up in your business, Dean. She does that."

"Whatever," I say. "Thanks for warning me, guys."

"You're family," Josh says. "We protect our own." It's weird that they say shit like that to me. Joe's my brother, but not by blood, so it's strange how the Samoans have adopted me. I never had much of a family before. My dad wasn't a dad and my mom was a drug addict whose boyfriends were all assholes. I'd had no choice but to run away from all of that as a kid. The first person I ever really considered family was Sami, followed by Colby and Joe. I never expected wrestling to give me a family, but it did.

I shake my head to clear my thoughts. I have to stop thinking about my childhood bullshit. It just fucks with my head.

NATTIE

Today has really sucked so far. TJ's been in a foul mood since Dean flipped him off, and he won't stop snapping at me. When we get to the arena, he shoves past me so he gets inside first. Then he drags me toward Claudio by my arm. It hurts as I try to pull it free, but he holds it tighter.

"So, we're tagging tonight," Claudio says. "This is becoming a thing..."

"Yeah, man, we rock together," TJ says. He's all smiles and enthusiasm now, and he lets me pull my arm away.

"Nattie. Good to see you," Claudio says politely.

I like Claudio. He's talented and is always polite to me. "Good to see you, too," I reply.

TJ and Claudio quickly get caught up in planning their match. I walk away, fairly certain TJ doesn't even notice. When I get to the catering area, I see Trinity and wave hello to her. She greets me with a warm hug. I genuinely like Trinity. She's not superficial like some of the other girls.

"Is everything okay?" She asks me.

"Yeah," I lie. "Everything's great." I don't like airing my dirty laundry in public. Some things have made it onto Total Divas, but most of what the audience gets to see is scripted or edited. The truth is, my relationship is even worse than people know, but I stick with TJ because I love him. For the longest time, our suns rose and set on each other, but it's looking more and more like that's no longer the case. Sometimes I wonder if getting married was a mistake. We were happier before.

"You know you can talk to me, right?" Trinity asks with concern.

"I know. But I'm fine. Really." If I say it enough times, I may even start to believe it.

I wander away and go get ready for the show. I'm not wrestling tonight, but I'm playing TJ's valet. I get dressed quickly and make sure I'm all smiles when I step outside. No one needs to know how I'm feeling. My job is to entertain and play my role, and right now, my role is that of a supportive wife.

As his music starts to play, TJ looks excited. It's sort of cute how pumped he gets when he's in performance mode. He goes out and I follow him, making him look good as I stand by his side. The role of the valet is to support their partner, distract referees and opponents when necessary, and cheat if you're working as a heel, which I am.

They're fighting a couple of local independent wrestlers tonight. It's always fun to see the young talent come in as jobbers. They get so excited by everything. These two kids are no exception. They last about four and a half minutes, which is impressive for jobbers, but in the end, Claudio pins one of them.

TJ is jumping around the ring celebrating like he got the pin. I stand by his side, holding his arm up in victory. He smiles at me briefly before putting on a good show for the fans. They're responding well to Claudio and TJ together, and I think WWE may actually make them a real tag team. If they do that, TJ will finally be back on the main roster with me. I'm thrilled by the idea. Maybe that will ease our problems. Besides, he deserves it. He's worked so hard to get back in shape after hurting his knee. I'm proud of him.

Backstage, TJ and Claudio celebrate while I introduce myself to the jobbers. "You two did great," I tell them.

"Thanks," the one who didn't get pinned says.

"Holy shit, Natalya just talked to us," the other one says. I laugh.

"It's good to meet you. What are your names?"

"I'm Tim, and he's John," the first one says.

"I hope to see your guys back here one day. You've got what it takes." It's a habit of mine to be nice to local talent. They need the encouragement, and a lot of them really are the next generation. I fully support training the new kids. If we're going to keep this business going, they're the future of it. I smile at them one more time before excusing myself.

I accidently bump into someone backstage. I'm not a clumsy person, I swear, but lately I have been getting dizzy more often. I should probably get that checked, but between wrestling and Total Divas, I barely have any time. He steadies me and I realize it's Dean Ambrose again.

"We have to stop meeting like this," I tell him. "I'm sorry."

"It's cool," he says. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." I smile at him. "Thanks for catching me."

"No problem." His eye catches the bruise TJ left on my arm earlier tonight and I see something flash on his face that I can't quite identify. He looks into my eyes and asks, "Who grabbed your arm, Nattie?"

I force myself to look away. "I don't know," I say. "It must have happened during the match when I interfered."

"That bruise looks a little older than that." I'm positive he knows it was TJ, but he doesn't call me on it. He's waiting for me to say something, but I can't. What happens between us is private, and besides, it's not like TJ was trying to bruise me. He just gets overly physical sometimes, especially when he's stressed out.

"I should get going," I say, forcing myself to sound cheerful.

"Right," Dean says. He's watching me carefully as I walk away. I really hope he doesn't try to push this issue with me. I don't want any trouble. Dean's obviously a nice guy, but TJ won't like it if he tries to get involved in our personal lives.

DEAN

That fucking bastard, I think. It's obvious Nattie's husband hurt her. I wonder how deep it goes, how often he's done shit like this to her. Rage builds inside me as I think about the possibility that he's hurt her before. All I want to do is kick his ass.

"Dean?" Colby asks me. He's found me backstage and I snap back to reality. "You okay, man?"

"Yeah," I say. "Just thinking."

"Don't hurt yourself," he teases me.

"Fuck you. Come on, we both need to get ready."

We walk into the locker room and get ready to go kick some ass. The thought is a nice distraction from my concern for Nattie. I know an abused woman when I see one. I try to stay out of everyone's bullshit at WWE, but this… I don't know if I can stay out of this. I like Nattie. I don't want to see her get hurt.

I can't fully force the thought out of my head even as I enter the ring. I don't know why Nattie matters to me, but she does. I decide I'll have to explore that later, when I'm not about to beat the crap out of someone. I pretend I'm facing TJ and get ready to kick some serious ass.